


Unwritten

by botherd



Category: FlashForward
Genre: Backstory, Coming Out, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botherd/pseuds/botherd





	Unwritten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calleigh_j](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calleigh_j/gifts).



Janis was eleven years old when she first heard the word _dyke_ hurled straight at her. She was playing softball--only later would she realize the cliché and laugh about it--and it rattled her, throwing her off the game so much that she struck out at her next at bat and lost the game for her team.

That was the start of it.

When she got home she told her mom about it, and her mom pulled her into a hug.

"Don't you worry about what those nasty girls say, honey." She leant back and surveyed Janis for a moment, and then said, "Although, if you didn't wear your hair so short, maybe those girls wouldn't spread such lies."

Janis nodded and decided to grow her hair a little way out, but it didn't stop the whispers. Natalie Fuller, the one who'd made the comment at the game, seemed to have it in for Janis, and not just because Janis could usually kick her ass at softball. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but Janis tried not to let it get to her.

Still, it came as a relief when Janis started junior high and Natalie was nowhere to be seen.

\---

The next time Janis saw Natalie Fuller was on the first day of high school, in homeroom. She'd changed, though; her hair was a little blonder, her face thinner, and Janis had stared--jealous, probably, that puberty was being so much kinder to Natalie than it was to Janis, who'd shot up over the summer and hadn't yet gotten over feeling gangly and awkward. Plus, her face was breaking out. And Janis knew she was still a million times smarter than Natalie Fuller, but it was hard to feel superior about it when she knew Natalie wouldn't care about stuff like that.

Natalie surprised her that day when she took the desk in front of Janis and turned round, saying nothing more than, "Hi, Janis." No insults, no snide remarks, and Janis knew it had been a long time since elementary school but she didn't think people like Natalie changed.

\---

Aged sixteen, Janis got her first--and last--boyfriend. She'd never really had time for boyfriends before, concentrating on her schoolwork so she could get a scholarship for a good college, and she'd never really had the inclination to chase boys either. Some of the ones at school were okay, but she'd look at the way the girls got over them and roll her eyes, because none of them were _that_ special. Luke Curtis, the quarterback that all the cheerleaders lost their minds over, was dumb as a rock and resembled one too.

Then one day in her sophomore year Johnny Monroe asked her to Spring Fling, and Janis ended up saying yes because she wasn't quite sure how to say no. Besides, it would make Janis's mom smile to know she was going to a school dance for once, and ever since stepdad number three had left a couple months ago, Janis liked doing things that made her mom happy.

So they went to Spring Fling, and from that point on they were sort of dating. Having a boyfriend wasn't how Janis pictured it and even though she liked him well enough there was never anything all that special there. Sometimes she would forget all about him, and then he'd call while she was in the middle of an assignment or whatever and talking to him was the bigger chore.

It must have shown on her face, her indifference, because one time after softball practice Natalie Fuller--they were on the same team now--hung back in the locker room like she was waiting for Janis, and asked her about it.

"What's up with you and Johnny Monroe?" Natalie sat down on the bench next to where Janis was trying to discreetly change--she'd always felt kind of uncomfortable when everyone was changing together, or worse, _showering_\--and looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. "Don't tell me you actually _like_ that geek."

Janis rolled her eyes. "What would you know about anything?" It was weird, the way things had changed with her and Natalie; it wasn't like back in elementary school, all stupid insults and antagonism, but they were hardly _friends_, and Janis didn't know why Natalie was even talking to her.

"I know you're gay, for one thing."

So she'd been wrong, Janis thought, and it _was_ back to stupid insults after all. "There's no one around to hear you make fun of me," Janis said, "so you might as well give it a rest."

"Who said I was making fun?"

"What?"

That's when Natalie kissed her, and everything changed.

\---

The worst part was when all the other kids found out at the start of senior year. (In retrospect, making out with Natalie behind the bleachers wasn't the best move. Janis was usually smarter than that, but at that point their on-off relationship was back on, and she couldn't help herself.) It wasn't like she gave a damn what her classmates thought--most of them she'd probably never see once high school was over, and she wasn't exactly losing sleep over the thought--but it got old really fast, being treated like a leper. Johnny Monroe took it as a personal insult instead of a simple explanation as to why they'd never gotten past second base, and he didn't want to hear about it when she tried to explain that she just hadn't realized she was gay. (And, okay, it had been kind of a huge oversight, because being with Natalie had proved that she was _really_ freaking gay.)

Janis wasn't ashamed of who she was; in fact, she liked herself a whole lot more once everything had clicked into place and she figured out who she was. But it wasn't difficult to come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it, having people know. She told her mom the summer before she left for Brown, but although the reaction from her mom was better than she expected, Janis didn't change her mind about it being better to keep it to herself.

\---

She kept it quiet through college, and some of the girls understood, like Ashley the sorority girl who was terrified her parents might find out, but with one girlfriend it caused friction: Miranda, who worked for the school paper and didn't believe in ever hiding the truth.

"You're a journalist. Don't you believe in protecting your sources?" Janis asked. They were in bed, having their favorite post-coital argument.

"That's different. That's not lying, it's discretion."

"Yes, discretion, exactly. That's what I'm talking about. How is that different from me choosing not to tell people something personal?"

Miranda just looked at her pityingly. "You shouldn't have to hide who you are. I know you're afraid of losing everything you've worked hard for--"

"And _I_ know it was a mistake to start dating someone who's minoring in Psych," Janis said.

It didn't last much longer than that.

\---

At Quantico she felt more at home than she had done at any point in her life, even though she was more private than ever, just because she was finally starting to do something she really loved, something she'd been working toward for as far back as she could remember. She made friends with a guy named Demetri, and the times they weren't working hard, they drank hard--or Janis did; Demetri was kind of a lightweight.

They hung out at this one bar in particular--except on karaoke nights, after Demetri persuaded Janis to sing one time and she completely embarrassed herself to something resembling the tune of 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'--where they mostly played pool to unwind after training.

One night Janis won every game they played, and after she pocketed the eight ball for the fifth time Demetri said, "Shit, is there anything you're not good at?"

She pretended to think about it for a moment, then said, "No, I'm actually awesome at everything. Or maybe it just seems that way in comparison to you because you suck so hard."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, pretty sure."

He broke into a smile. For a moment it looked like he was going to make another joke, but then he seemed to think the better of it and instead leaned in to kiss her.

She stepped back before he could make contact, knocking into the pool table and spilling the remnants of her beer over the fabric. "Shit," she said, glancing at the mess, and then she looked back at Demetri and felt even worse. "I'm sorry, you're not really my type."

"You don't like Asian guys?" he joked.

Her first instinct was to deflect, but she figured he could handle the truth--or rather, _she_ could handle him knowing the truth. "I don't like guys, period."

He looked surprised for a moment, then he shrugged. "Fair enough. Another game?"

\---

What Janis didn't expect was that they'd end up working together. She worked for a time in DC before transferring to LA, and he was one of the first people she saw when she stepped into the headquarters there. He was deep in conversation with a man who looked alarmingly intense--he would later be introduced to Janis as Mark Benford, Demetri's partner--but he waved when he saw her, and Janis didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned about seeing a familiar face. It wasn't like she expected him to introduce her to anyone by saying, "This is Janis Hawk; she's a lesbian," but she felt a flicker of unease that she really could have done without on her first day.

They went out for a drink that first night and, once Demetri was done filling her in on everything she needed to know about LA, Janis said, "You're not going to tell anyone what you know about me, right?"

"What, that you can drink me under the table?"

Janis laughed. "No, you know--the gay thing."

"Right, the gay thing." He shrugged. "I'll keep your big secret, but how come you don't want people to know? No one would care."

"Sure they wouldn't," Janis said. "I just want to keep my head down and do my job, without having people judge me on something irrelevant. Besides, it's the government. They're not too friendly toward people like me."

"Got it," he said, and it was seeing him look sad for her that made her wish it could be different for once, instead of simply accepting that that was how it was.

\---

When things changed, it wasn't just because of the blackout; it was Maya as well.

Janis met her at karate, and when Maya asked her out after Janis had pinned her to the floor, she said yes right away. The first date went well but it nearly ended before it really started; after what happened at the art gallery Maya stayed away, and though she sent flowers to the hospital when Janis got shot, she didn't visit. Janis thought that was the end of it, but when January came and went and Janis wasn't pregnant--her sensible side kicked in when her doctors advised her to wait, and she realized that this wasn't her one shot at having a kid--she decided to give Maya another call. Part of her expected that Maya would have found someone else by now, not least because of her flashforward, but Maya agreed to another date.

When they were seated, at a different restaurant this time, Janis glanced at Maya's fingers. "No wedding band," she said, and Maya smiled.

"Not yet," she said. "No baby?"

"Not for the foreseeable future," Janis said, and she laughed. "Although, now that my flashforward definitely _won't_ be coming true, I don't think I can really call it that."

"I guess neither of our flashforwards are coming true," Maya said. "It's weird, isn't it? Before the blackout I never cared about not knowing what the future held, but now it kind of freaks me out."

"I think I like it, actually. Honestly, I can't wait for April to be over so everything can go back to normal," Janis said. "But anyway, you're not out of time yet. Your flashforward could still happen."

"With two months to go? Anyway, you didn't say you were wearing a wedding ring in your flashforward, so..." She trails off, looking embarrassed. "Jesus, I need to stop doing that. The U-Haul thing is meant to be a cliché, not real life."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Janis said. "I mean, I used to play softball."

Maya laughed. "You did? I bet you used to look cute in your little softball uniform."

"Oh, yeah. None of the girls could resist me." Janis hesitated for a moment, then said, "Speaking entirely hypothetically, I could have been married in my flashforward. Maybe I took my ring off while I was at work and forgot to put it back on. But the point is, it's not a puzzle we have to figure out. I like you, Maya, and I'd like to see where it goes, without all the second-guessing."

A warm smile crossed Maya's face, but only for a second. "Wait. Even if we got married--entirely hypothetically, of course--you wouldn't tell the people you work with?"

Her automatic answer would have always been _no_, but maybe what she always thought of as her instinct for self-preservation was actually the opposite, and it had been bringing her down.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe I would."


End file.
